Penrose limits, supergravity and brane dynamics

We investigate the Penrose limits of classical string and M-theory backgrounds. We prove that the number of (super)symmetries of a supergravity background never decreases in the limit. We classify all the possible Penrose limits of AdS x S spacetimes and of supergravity brane solutions. We also present the Penrose limits of various other solutions: intersecting branes, supersymmetric black holes and strings in diverse dimensions., and cosmological models. We explore the Penrose limit of an isometrically embedded spacetime and find a generalization to spaces with more than one time. Finally, we show that the Penrose limit is a large tension limit for all branes including those with fields of Born-Infeld type.